What gets written
Three kinds, and the shape of each
A service page, an article and a case study are read by different people at different points, so they are built differently. Below is the running order each one is built to, what the interview has to get out of your expert, and what you are asked to confirm before a word of it is written.
These are the shapes a piece is written to, agreed with you in the brief and changed when your subject needs a different order. They describe how the work is done; they are not extracts from anybody’s published pages.
Service Pages
The page that explains one service to somebody deciding whether to ask about it.
- Who reads it
- A buyer who already has the problem and is working out whether you are the right people to take it to.
- What it is for
- To say what the service is, how it runs and what it needs from the buyer, in enough detail that an enquiry arrives already half-qualified.
The running order
- The problem in the buyer’s own wordsTaken from the interview, not from how the business describes it internally.
- What the service actually isThe plainest possible statement of the work, before any positioning.
- How it runs, step by stepThe stages, who does what at each one, and where the buyer has to be involved.
- What it needs from youAccess, data, people, decisions. The section that saves the most time later.
- Where it fits and where it does notThe cases the service suits, and the cases it does not. Written from your answers.
- Questions that come up before people askThe questions your expert says are asked every time, answered on the page.
- What to do nextOne clear next step, with whatever the buyer needs to have ready for it.
What the interview has to answer
- What the service does, described as if to a competent stranger
- The step-by-step of a job from first call to sign-off
- What goes wrong when a buyer is not ready, and what being ready looks like
- The questions your team answers on every enquiry call
- Which enquiries you turn down, and why
What you confirm before it is written
- That the process described is the process you actually run
- That anything the page treats as included really is included
- Any timescale, capacity or coverage figure the page names
Commissioned as: Service Page Copy (£240 per project) or the Monthly Content Allocation (£1150 per month).
Articles
The piece that explains part of the subject, for a reader not yet ready to enquire.
- Who reads it
- Someone researching the subject who has not decided that they need a supplier at all yet.
- What it is for
- To answer one question properly, using knowledge your competitors cannot copy off a search results page, so the site earns a reason to be read.
The running order
- The question, stated onceOne question per piece. Two questions make two pieces.
- The short answerNear the top, so a reader who only wants that can stop there.
- What it depends onThe conditions that change the answer, from your expert rather than from general reading.
- How it is done in practiceThe part only somebody who does the work can supply.
- The mistakes your expert sees mostNamed plainly, with what to do instead.
- What this does not coverThe boundary of the piece, so it is not read as advice on the neighbouring problem.
- Where to go nextWhichever page of yours actually answers the next question.
What the interview has to answer
- The question as your customers really phrase it
- The answer your expert would give on the phone, including the caveats
- What changes the answer: size, sector, regulation, budget, timing
- The mistake your expert is tired of correcting
- What is deliberately outside the scope of the answer
What you confirm before it is written
- That the answer is the answer your business would stand behind in writing
- Any standard, regulation or figure the piece leans on
- That nothing in the piece gives advice you are not qualified to give
Commissioned as: Monthly Content Allocation (£1150 per month).
There is no one-off article in the price list. Articles are written inside the Monthly Content Allocation, as one or more of that month’s three pieces.
Case Studies
One piece of work, told as it happened, with your customer’s agreement.
- Who reads it
- A buyer who believes you can do the work and now wants to see it done for somebody like them.
- What it is for
- To let a buyer recognise their own situation in somebody else’s, in enough detail that the recognition is specific rather than flattering.
The running order
- Who the customer is, as far as they allowNamed, or described by sector and size if they would rather not be named.
- The situation before the workWhat was happening, and why it had to change when it did.
- What was tried firstThe most useful section of the three, and the easiest one to leave out.
- What was doneThe work itself, at the level of detail the customer agrees to have published.
- What happened afterwardsOnly what your customer will confirm. Nothing is estimated to fill the section.
- What the customer saysTheir own words from the interview, shown to them before publication.
- Who this would suitThe kind of reader this story is genuinely relevant to.
What the interview has to answer
- What the customer came to you with, in their words
- What had already been tried, and why it had not worked
- The decisions taken during the work and who took them
- What changed afterwards, and how the customer knows it changed
- What the customer is willing to have published, and under what name
What you confirm before it is written
- That your customer has agreed to be written about, and on what terms
- Every outcome the piece states, with something behind it
- That the draft has been shown to the customer before it goes live
Commissioned as: Customer Case Study (£380 per project) or the Monthly Content Allocation (£1150 per month).
A case study bought on its own runs longer than one written inside the monthly allocation, where every piece shares the same word count.
Bring a subject, and which of the three it is gets settled before anything is agreed
The request form asks what industry you are in, who you are writing for and which of the three you think you need. If the answer turns out to be a different kind, you are told so before anything is agreed.